GAME DESIGNER
RUNNERS
What is Runners?
My roles
Runners is a third-person multiplayer parkouring game!
Take control of Strawberry Girl, Octo, Hermit and Sharkboy in a wild dash across the universe.
Your objective is simple; jump, glide and wall-run. Each obstacle you clear gives you points, the player with the highest score in the end – wins!
► Gameplay Designer
► Project management
Credits
Design
Viktor Uppman
Sara Karlsson
Art
Albin Högbom
Petronella Olanders
Sofie Färdig
Programming
Anton Edvardsson
Johan Rosén
Mattias Strandberg
My Work on Runners
Throughout the five-week project of Runners, my main responsibilities revolved around creative vision, gameplay design and project management.
The concept was mine originally, therefore we felt that it was a natural progression that I should also take on a role that acts a bit more of a creative director throughout the project.
Work tasks I handled include tweaking gameplay, making sure that everyone had a coherent vision and to make sure that we could finish the project within the given time-frame.
Challenges & Experiences
The main challenge I faced as a designer & project manager throughout this project was quite simply: "Is it worth it?". We went into this project with a lot of cool features in mind – and we failed horribly at implementing them!
We're talking power-ups, randomised levels, and a whole bunch of other stuff that we thought would make the game more exciting. We more or less covered every rookie mistake one can make.
Another important thing to note is that we also at some point realised that we should just make it stupid simple. Sara and I sat down and simply discussed what our minimum viable product (MVP) was, and quickly realised that the game didn't need a bunch of super-exciting features that would water down the gameplay. The game just needed soul (did I just use a buzzword? You bet your behind I did).
If we could convey the feeling of just running endlessly across space with your best friends, then we knew we were going in the right direction.
Fun fact: In the beginning, Runners actually had a shooting mechanic and was essentially a third person shooter with racing elements!